"Yes, sir." Fergus motioned to one of the men and spoke to him in private.
"What if we don't find her?" Elgin asked Leidolf.
"We'll find her, if it takes all night. Spread out, men. One little redheaded lady isn't about to give us the slip for long." Leidolf noticed Satros stiffly climbing out of Carver's mini-SUV. He gave Leidolf a small smile. Leidolf acknowledged Satros's finding Cassie with a return smile, even though Leidolf hadn't gotten word until he'd found her himself. He still appreciated that Satros had tried so hard to find Leidolf a mate to ensure he stayed with the pack.
"Good thing you had spotted her at the river fishing earlier, Satros. Now, the trick is to keep her." Which Leidolf was bound and determined to do, the more he got to know the little lady. Everything in his life had been a challenge. Cassie would be the ultimate challenge this time around. "Let's go."
"This way." Elgin pointed at the ground as he followed her trail. "She's moving fast."
"Spread out," Leidolf said, quickening his own pace.
They rushed through the trees, stopping only long enough to listen, sniff the air, and catch her scent.
"Do you think one of the men who murdered the woman was the same one who shot Cassie?" Elgin asked from several feet away in the darkened woods. "And she was with this guy named Alex?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what I think," Leidolf growled.
"Think he's a lupus garou, too, and that's why he didn't hang around and tell the police who he was?"
"No. He listened to her lecture at the town hall. He's a wolf biologist also, only of the human variety." Leidolf ground his teeth. What the hell had Alex been doing with her in the woods? Had he pushed himself on her when she hadn't wanted him around? Or maybe the reason she was so desperate to get back here had nothing to do with a female red wolf, but rather with a human wolf biologist. Which meant even though he could usually read his people's actions, he was clueless about Cassie. And that he didn't like.
Leidolf strode forth, trying to get another location on his would-be mate.
Cassie was determined to break the hunter's grip on her arm and run free while the other man punched in numbers on his cell phone.
"Sheriff Whittaker?" the man said. "This is Everett Hollis. My brother, Ben, and I found a woman in the woods half naked, and we're about half a mile from--" He looked down at her and then nodded. "A pretty redhead." He smiled.
"Yeah, she's the one. Ben said she spoke at the town hall. She's that wolf biologist from California. We'll bring her to the road to hand her over to Mr. Wildhaven. Sure, Sheriff. She's not going anywhere."
He snapped his phone shut and said to Ben, "The little lady borrowed that rich rancher's Jag." He looked down at her clothes. "Looks like she took a little more than that."
Ben furrowed his brow at her. "I always thought rich folks didn't have any troubles." Then he gave her an evil smile. "Here I thought you were one of those stuck-up educated women, and come to find out you're down-to-earth like the rest of us." His grin broadened.
"You're hurting my wrist," she complained, frowning at him. He did have an ironclad hold on her, and it was cutting off the circulation, although her complaint was a little more devious than wanting to protest about the pressure on her wrist.
When Ben loosened his grip a little, Cassie twisted around and down, breaking his hold on her, and dashed south again for her vehicle.
"Damn it, Ben. How could you let a slip of a woman get away?"
They tromped after her in rabid pursuit. If she could just reach the truck before these men caught up to her, she could move it. Then she could return to the area where she'd left the salmon and locate the mother wolf and her den. Alex would most likely have left the area already.
She frowned as she plowed through tree branches and underbrush. Unless he worried about the wounded wolf--her--and was searching for her. Damn. Once she got to her truck, she could call Alex on her cell phone, if the cell-phone signal could reach him, and let him know she'd taken the wolf to a vet so he wouldn't worry about it--her. The lies would soon strangle her.
Leaving the hunters far behind where she didn't think they'd ever catch up, she kept running until she saw the narrow turnout where she'd parked her vehicle. When she reached the location, she found Alex's truck parked behind hers, blocking her in. She could scream. But the fact he hadn't left set her to worrying about his safety again.
She didn't have any other choice. She used the keypad to unlock her truck, then tossed her clothes--Leidolf's clothes, rather--inside and yanked off the bandage over her shoulder. Sharp pain streaked through the muscle and radiated down her back, and she let out a sorrowful groan. She shoved his garments and the bandage under the passenger seat, relocked the door, and shifted.
The shifting hurt. Landing on her front paws in her wolf form hurt. Everything hurt. But if Alex's truck was still here, he wasn't safe. Neither was she. For now, she had a couple of frantic rescue missions to accomplish, and she wasn't stopping until she did.
Leidolf's cell phone jingled again, and he quit walking through the woods to glance at the number, while his men stopped to hear the news. The sheriff. Leidolf jerked the phone to his ear. "Yeah?"
"Just got the word two hunters came across a woman dressed like the one driving your Jag. Ben and Everett Hollis worried she was a runaway or had been traumatized, the way she was dressed, but then realized she was that wolf biologist who gave the lecture on wolves the other night. Ben said he's got her in tow, headed toward the road to hand her over to you."
Leidolf breathed a tentative sigh of relief. "Good news." He didn't think the sheepherders would do anything but keep her safe, even if they wouldn't like her wolf politics.
But before he could sign off, the sheriff said, "Wait, got another message coming in." He seemed to pause forever before he spoke again to Leidolf, and the suspense was killing him. "They lost her. She shook loose of Ben's grip and headed south again, but they're in pursuit of her."
"Wearing nighttime goggles?" Had to be if they could see like wolves in the gloom of night.
"Yeah. You want them to keep after her?"
"Sure. I'll give you an update in a while." Leidolf didn't want to make it sound as though he needed to keep the whole thing secret from the sheriff's office. Not at this point. He figured Cassie wouldn't allow the brothers to catch her again anyway. "We're headed in that direction." Leidolf signed off with the sheriff. He wanted Cassie under his protection and didn't like the idea the men would be manhandling her.
"She's headed this way," Elgin said, a little way away. "A turnout is just ahead."
"She's probably parked there," Leidolf responded. "Hell, if she gets into her vehicle, that's the last we'll see of her." He started running. He wasn't letting her go until he knew her story. Well, that wasn't exactly true. He didn't intend to let her go ever, although convincing her he had her best interests at heart was going to be some task.
Elgin and the others began to run in their spread-out configuration. Hunting the female made the wolfish side of him want her all the more.
Then they broke into the clearing for the turnout. They saw two pickups, both dark, no one in either, one blocking the other in at the trailhead.
"The green one's hers. The black one is Alex's." He turned to Pierce. "Pick the lock, and wait for her in the cab in the event she returns. Quincy, you take the truck behind it. If she returns with Alex, she might try to leave with him. We need to make sure that neither takes off before I can question them further."
"Yes, sir," both of his men said.
Elgin motioned toward the Willamette River. "She's headed this way, Leidolf."
A good half hour later, he heard the rush of the river and saw her in her red wolf form near the edge of the water, limping as she paced, sniffing and searching in the area... for what? And what the hell was she doing in her wolf form, risking getting shot again? Trying to locate Alex? Although a sense of relief washed over Leidolf to see her there, unharmed except for the old injury.